1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to microscope technology and in particular, to the technology of a microscope system suitable for use in cytology in which a microscope is used to make the record and/or observation of a high-vision and high-definition microscope image.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, the cytologic diagnosis is made, for example, as follows.
First, a cytotechnologist uses an objective lens with relative low (for example, 10×) magnification to perform the screening of the entire specimen and prosecutes the search of a malignant cell or an exceptional cell (such a cell is called an “abnormal cell” in the present invention). Here, when a suspectable cell has been found, the objective lens is replaced with that of high (for example, 40×) magnification in order to observe the structure of the cell in more detail, and a detailed observation is carried out while changing the focal position to ascertain whether it is a target cell. Here, in the case where the cell of a target or abnormality has been found, a mark is put with ink on a slide glass on which the specimen is smeared. Also, for a positive case and/or a false positive case, a cytologic specialist or instructor performs re-microscopy to make a final determination and reports examination results under his signature to a client. On the other hand, when the cytotechnologist has made the determination of a negative case, the examination results are reported to the client, without checking of the cytologic specialist and/or instructor, in most cases.
It is very laborious work to screen a malignant cell from among a great number of cells. The occurrence of a false negative case caused by an oversight for the malignant cell attributable to the fatigue and ability of the cytotechnologist offers a problem. A determination made as to whether a screened cell is abnormal or not depends on the ability and/or experience of the cytotechnologist, and thus there is also the problem that variations are caused to examination accuracy. In consideration of such problems, the technique is known that the accuracy of a cytologic examination is improved in such a way that the screening of the abnormal cell is carried out by a machine and the determination of benignancy or malignancy, such as “malignant” or “malignancy suspected”, is made by the cytotechnologist. For such a technique, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-501184 discloses an apparatus in which a specimen is scanned at a low magnification, an abnormal cell is automatically extracted in accordance with the geometry of a nucleus, the region of an extracted cell is photographed at a high magnification to store its image, and thereby the extracted abnormal cell can be evaluated in accordance with the image by a pathologist.
Further, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2004-517349 discloses an apparatus in which the X and Y coordinates of an abnormal cell automatically extracted by specimen scanning are recorded and the coordinates are reproduced under a microscope (a review station) provided with a motorized stage so that the abnormal cell can be observed.
On the other hand, a system is known that whenever the motorized stage is utilized to move the visual field (that is, whenever the objective lens and the specimen are relatively moved in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis of the microscope), a plurality of microscope images of the specimen are photographed and acquired, these are mutually connected, and thereby a wide-vision and high-resolution microscope image is constructed and utilized for a pathological diagnosis, etc. In the present invention, it is assumed that this microscope image is referred to as a “VS (virtual slide) image”, and a system producing the VS image in this way is termed a “virtual slide microscope system”.
For the technology of the virtual slide microscope system, for example, Japanese Patent Kokai No. 2006-343573 discloses a system automatically producing a three-dimensional VS image, and it is possible to use this system for the cytologic examination. In addition, Kokai No. 2006-343573 discloses the technique that after the examination undergone by the use of the system is completed, only a region of interest designated by a pathologist is held with high-definition and three-dimensional information and other regions are held by reducing the number of dimensions to two dimensions (a plane) and also by lowering the resolution, and thereby the storage capacity of a memory is saved.
Japanese Patent Kokai No. Hei 9-281405 also discloses the virtual slide microscope system. As for the rest, with respect to the present invention, for example, “Digital Image Processing”, the supervision of Digital Image Processing Editorial Committee, Second Edition, Computer Graphic Arts Society, Mar. 1, 2007, pp. 108-110 and pp. 177-184, sets forth the explanation of various well-known digital image processing techniques, for example, of smoothing filter processing of the Gaussian filter, contour tracking for finding the boundary between pixel connecting components relative to a binary image, closing processing by dilation and erosion for eliminating a small hole in the image, labeling processing for distinguishing by attaching different labels to different pixel connecting components, and calculation processing of the geometric feature parameter digitizing the feature of the geometry of the pixel connecting component.